The crying game

How does that song start? "I know all there is to know about the crying game..." Well, I thought I did. Turns out this baby girl has a few tricks up her sleeves now that we've hit the four and a half month mark and I'm starting to get serious about sleep training. We were at her check up the other day (for the record: 15 lbs 4 oz. and 27 in long!) when the pediatrician asked about our sleep routine. It's been going well for the most part with anywhere from 9 to 11 hours on most nights, but we're still relying on the swing to get us through those middle of the night wakings and some naps. I'm not proud of that, but hey, it's whatever works sometimes. Or at least that's what I said about months one, two and three. Somehow after reaching month four, I thought I would have things more figured out. I thought we would be putting her down and not hearing from her til morning. I had such high hopes for this docile girl. Riiiiiiiiiiiiight. And I know some of that is because Elisa made her dramatic turnaround from colicky screamer to all-night-sleeper about that time. It was a total reversal of (mis)fortune by which she actually gave us a break most nights. What I can't remember exactly is how those average nights looked. Did we have to deal with multiple wakings? How long did it take to rock her to sleep? How much crying did she do? Did she take any bottles in the middle of her 12 hour stretches? Why is my memory so fuzzy?

With Carolina, the progress has been much steadier and more consistently good. Her early stretches of 4-5 hours of sleep became more like 6-7 and then we were hitting a few 8-9 hours even before I weaned her. It's all gone well and we really haven't backtracked, but neither have we leaped forward. And now that she's formula only, I suppose her routine has become more pronounced in that she's up for about 2 hours and then down for an hour nap. Usually the second nap of the day is longer and some days those two breaks are all we get. Every once in a while there's a third nap which can move bedtime back a little bit. But by and large, Carolina is in bed for the night somewhere between 6:30-7:30 p.m. It's her internal clock that dictates it, not mine, and it's working out pretty well. But this past week we've been attempting to sleep train so that the little fussing at bedtime or naptime is ignored while she tries to figure out how to fall asleep--or go back to sleep--on her own. Some nights it's a few minutes of crying, but a couple of evenings it's been an hour or more and I have to go back in to soothe her. I'm horrible at maintaining a consistent plan so one night I go right back in and the next night I let her cry for an hour. Of course this is what the book (Weissbluth's Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child) clearly warns against. BE CONSISTENT. So why is that the first rule I break? Most of the time her crying is so lowkey and it stops and starts that I have a hard time telling if she's winding down or up. I remember vaguely that with Elisa we never did any one method of sleep training but by five or six months she was going to sleep well and I think staying asleep most nights. And I'm sure we're on track with this one to get there as well. But for right now there's a lot of self doubt and wondering if I'm helping or hurting her sleep habits. Do I give up the swing completely even though it helps in the middle of the night? How long do I let her cry in one evening before I say enough is enough? Last night the crying only lasted a few minutes each time she woke and she settled herself down. Maybe she is learning. I can only hope so. Because I really look forward to climbing into my bed again one day and not getting up until morning. That will happen again right? Is it too late to ask Santa for uninterrupted sleep?